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Monday, 29 October 2012

This past weekend has been a bit of a whirlwind, and I haven't managed to get onto the laptop to put up a post for my Crafty Card a Day... see HERE if you want to know more!

I've been busy prepping demo's for a couple of shows on Create and Craft yesterday. We had the wonderfully cute Boofle and lots of kits from your favourite items. I'm so glad that you all loved the items on the show and would like to thank you all for your lovely emails!

So, here I am without further ado - here's my cute card for today. And I've gone back to Christmas... again... I do promise a non christmas card soon!

I love elephants, and this topper was so cute I just had to pop it on a card. The background of the card was papers that matched the kit, and I just added a couple of punched borders and some some punched flowers..

I think this is one of my most used punch sets.... poinsettia and holly... love it!

And here's the cutesy little elephant. So sweet... and I think it's inspired me to get out my other elephant bits and bobs and craft a card with it.. however, if you want inspiring, then just request to join the fab little group on Facebook that Kathy has created. You can find the link HERE...

Right now, I need to get off and get creating as I have a SUPER show or two coming up on Thursday that I need to get ready for... and a demo at Craft Central Derby on Saturday (can't wait to see my favourite girls!)

Friday, 26 October 2012

Oh Sigh.... what a day already - I've been up bright and early ready to get my calculator powered on for the dreaded job of tax returns....!! Three hours later, I'm all done, entered and sorted..

Onto the rest of the day, and I have quite a bit of work to get through for this upcoming week... demo samples to concentrate on, work to finish for some more exciting filming of Creativity TV in a couple of weeks, and projects and demo's for a few shows on Create and Craft. Oh, and cleaning. Did I say that out loud?? Heck.. it must be desperate!

Anyway, onto today's cards and I thought I'd show you a few more of my Christmas cards. This card a day page on Facebook is doing me well... it's definately giving me the 'oomph' that I needed...

So here's card number one - another cutesy Santa card..

Another little pet hate of mine - using tags on the front of cards - but again, I think it works quite well on this. There was a little gap on the side of the image to slot one on top, finished off with a red gingham bow.

Oh look at ol' Santa with his holey socks and hot chocolate. Such an adorable image. And so is this one too -

Sorry about the glare on the mirror card, it was taken on my mobile... the image is soooo adorable - lots of cuteness going on here - and anyone who knows me, knows I love cute!

The doggie looks like a little spaniel - but I love the duck!!! Mega cute!!

The card background came in with a kit and I love that it had the borders already done - very quick and easy.

Well... I hope you can pop along to the new group on Facebook - get blogging with us, it's great fun and just a little bit inspiring.. lol.

I can't believe time if flying like it has over the past few weeks... maybe it's just me, slowing down with age? (I hope not quite so soon... lol)

This past couple of weeks have been a little quieter, things are settling down a little now in time for Christmas, and I even got time to make a start on some much needed Christmas cards for my lovely neighbour, Becky, who requested a few special ones.

I've also had a flying visit down to Docrafts - I can't reveal too much, but needless to say I am soooooo looking forward to you seeing it. YOU ARE GONNA LOVE IT!!!!!!!!! I know me and Sheila do, as we were ooooohing and ahhhhhhhing together in harmony!

So... Christmas cards.... I thought it was about time I broke into the kit I bought a while ago from Create and Craft... well, more like a few kits! ... and make a start. I did actually once say to Dawn, from Kanban, that this style of crafting wasn't really me... but as I've seen today, I can actually work with whatever comes my way and quite enjoy it!!

So here are the start of my Christmas card posts...

First things first.... a cute little doggy! How can I not be inspired when there's a dog on the loose in my crafty box??

I kept the card quite simple, basic matting and layering, and added some mirror card to the layers for shine. Not very often that I use mirror card, but as the designs had it built in, I felt I needed it..

Here's the second card for today... good old Santa himself. Love this image too - and again, simple layering to keep focus on the main image.

I did add a little bit of glitter to this one too, for a bit of sparkle..

I WILL be back tomorrow to show you a few more bits and bats.... and I can hear you wondering why! Well, a very special person called Kathy (whose work I have loved for like yeeeeears since I recieved a little mini book!) has started a group on Facebook to inspire us to blog more.. it's called a card a day, and you can find it HERE if you want to tag along and rejig that blogging bug - I know I need to!

Tuesday, 16 October 2012

Have you heard of FizzyMilkJelly? Well... I am a fairly organised sort of person, but sometimes my schedules leave me running around like a headless chicken, and not knowing what to do first...

However, I've recently learnt about FizzyMilkJelly from a great friend, Emma Collins, and would love to introduce you to being more organised...... so here's Emma to tell you a little more.

The initial concept for FizzyMilkJelly came about as a result of a cycle that
founder Trudy Spikesman was stuck in. Recently described as; "a revolution
for the terminally disorganized" I had to find out more…

“I
have always been a bit of a personal development junkie and I would buy and
read book after book about goal setting, life change, productivity etc. I would
feel amazing highs from the material and would create lists of actions to take
along with page references from the books – all noted in a pretty notebook. I’d
then find a new pretty notebook, stash the old one in a drawer and wonder why
I hadn't experienced the amazing transformations I was anticipating.
All that and yet I was successfully keeping up with day to day appointments and
ticking through many tasks and projects at work and home.

After
then painstakingly drawing lines into a day to page diary, so that I had space
to start getting my goal focus into my daily diary ... I created the Break The
Mould 90 Day Life Energiser Workbook. This was the first product that I
launched in 2009.

Beyond the first product, the natural development was to create a range of
products to help people to get organised, and to simplify life, so that time is
not wasted on life management activities – but on making the most of the time
we have to do the things we truly want to be doing.

I
love knowing that everything is out of my head and down on paper. I would start
to go stir crazy if I had to keep everything stored in my head, or wonder where
I could find key information.”

Well there’s a heap of downloads available to help keep a
record of what craft projects you have planned, how much you are spending on
the products and a shopping list to keep you focused when you visit your local
craft store! You even have a chance to see for yourself. You can grab yourself a 7 day FULL ACCESS trial for just
£1.50! Use coupon code 150TRIAL

What is
great is that all of this is available online. Download them, Type into them,
save them, print them, file them, and write on them!

I really hope you go and visit the site - it's fantastic!! Just click on the images or links, and it'll take you straight there! And no more 'being unorganised' for me! (until next time!!!) Perfect!

Saturday, 13 October 2012

How are we all? Another little christmas card to share with you all today... and because it's for a fella, I thought I'd keep it nice, simple and put it on kraft card.

Kraft card from Docrafts is perfect for the men - and women - in your life, as it's such a fab base for any colour paper and design.

So here we are....

Firstly, I chose some paper to go with the kraft card.. I went with green spotty to keep it bright and trendy. The image was stamped with some fab 'bitty' stamps I bought last year. All the elements - heads, feet, arms, bodies etc - are all seperate, and you basically can put them together as you wish. Great fun me thinks!

I stamped them with the new brown dye Docrafts Artiste inks (oooooh these are sooo lovely!) and then pulled the colour out a little with a water brush pen.

To add the spots of colour on the images, I used watercolour pencils but didn't blend them out with water.. I just layered up the colour to add depth.

I told you I'd pop back and show you a little card. This is one of the first Christmas cards I've made this year (apart from demo samples of course) and I love how it came together.

This is one I did for Craft class the other day, and it was simply because I wanted to use my new die. See it? The one across the top?? Isn't it lovely??!!

I reckon I'm quickly starting to become addicted to using dies more and more, and this is one I knew I needed (it is a need, right??) when I saw it. Pretty much like the new ones that Docrafts have bought out this past week or so. Have you seen them?? Oooh they are lovely.

Here's a little peep of a couple of them..

This one is by the lovely Becky James... card designer extraordinaire... and features the new frame die.

And a fantastic scrapbook page from Beckie Dreyer featuring one of the birdhouses...

Great aren't they?

Anyway.. onto today's card, and my Die cut inspiration is the border die for this card.

You can see just how perfectly it frames the top of the card. (and I just noticed the bow has fallen off!) And I think it's really pretty too.

I've coloured the image in with pencils, then added a little bit of liquid applique and glitter glue to the hat rim.

I did dab down the liquid applique with my finger around the hat so that it didn't puff up too soon as I was heating it.

I am going to enter a few challenges with this card too.. just because I haven't entered any for a while..

I really need to get a Christmas Countdown put on my blog - don't I??? I'm not too sure whether I do or not, but at least then I can count up exactly how many days I have to panic that I haven't managed to make my cards for another year... lol.

However, things have been a bit busy in the house of craft over the last few days... as I had an order come in for quite a few Christmas cards. Now. You know I openly admit I don't generally make my own, but I thought I ought to at least make a start on the cards for the order! I'm sure you'll agree...

So, here's a little peep at the ones I've been making over the past few days. I will show you them more in detail over the next few days.

As you can see, I've used punches, stamps, stitching, decoupage and toppers to create a variety of fresh looking Christmas cards.. I just hope they suit the recipients..

So, have you all been really good and started doing your cards? Do YOU have a Christmas countdown? Is it useful.... or plain ol' depressing? lol.

Friday, 5 October 2012

Where is the time going this week?? It doesn't seem two minutes since I did my last post, and it's Friday already.... blimey.. it'll soon be Christmas!!

And talking about Christmas, I've been busy playing with the cutesy Boofle stamps. Here's one card -

I've just done a bit of layering onto mirror card with this one, then added some paper piecing for the wellies, scarf and hat. All finished off with a bit of glitter - because you just have to have glitter for Christmas!!

And here's the same character again, a little simpler background on this card using an older embossing folder from Docrafts. I inked up the folder with black ink then used it as a stamp which meant I could colour the background. Simple but nice.

The texture for little Boofle was done with the older range of Boofle stamps that Docrafts bought out a while ago... you got quite a few different textures and backgrounds on this set, so I opted to use the wooly effect.

And here's that letterpress type of embossing a little clearer.

So countdown to Christmas then.... I will try to include non Christmas cards on my next few posts - the later I can leave the rundown to the big day, the better!! lol.

Wednesday, 3 October 2012

Isn't it strange how you rely on something so simple like a bit of electricity?

Yesterday was a bit of a disaster zone here - the house went very quiet with a little bit of a pop yesterday afternoon and we didn't have any more power at all until around half past two this morning. I think it's strange how desperate my darlin' daughter was getting because she had no phone charge, no computer.. lol.. just funny how you get to rely on things.

I spent the afternoon thinking, that's okay because I can make a few cards.. whoops.. no light. Oh well, I can read. Whoops. No light. Hey ho, I'll play games on my mobile.. oh dear. No charge. So it was quite strange doing things like 'nothing'.. lol.

So, there we have the reason we had no post yesterday, but I'm here today to share a few cards with you.

I thought I'd show you these fantastic fabric papers from Papermania today... I loves them loads!! They are a self adhesive paper - sticky on the back, fabric on the front! And they make your cards look awesome!

Here I've used the Home for Christmas hearts fabric onto kraft cardstock - the red goes perfectly with the brown!

I also decided to add a Dinky the Donkey to the card and one of the brilliant glitterments sentiment panels. These are all christmassy and glittery and have the most wonderful sentiments on them too.

See the texture of the fabric? It really makes your cards looks great and a little more tactile.
Here's another little quick card that I've made using a couple of different patterns.

My favourite pattern from the Home for Christmas set this year is the background on the above card. It's such a generic pattern, and the red and greys match perfectly. So lovely.

And here's a little close up for you of the patterned heart paper.

The decoupage on this little card was from the Moments of Faith christmas range. These are quite traditional images which again, match perfectly with the fabrics.

See that I also cut the circle? Yes.. the sticky back fabric also goes through your die cut machine, and you can turn it over and emboss it too - just like paper but very lovely!!

Tuesday, 2 October 2012

Firstly, it has to be said.. I'm hating the new style Blogger - what's with changing things when the old stuff works so perfectly in the first place??!!

Oh well... today, I just wanted to share a little card that I've made for my demo's this last month. I'm really loving the Tulip Christmas range, it's so fresh and young looking - but suitable for that contemporary and traditional look too - see... it's red.. and green.. but has the pale blues and violets too!

For this card, I opted to use the decoupage pack - fantastic value for money too! Isn't she the cutest.. but guess what I like the bestest? Yep, you guessed it - the little doggy. He soooooo reminds me of my Mr Scoobs too.

The spotty paper that was in the pack is what I've used for the chopped up ovals at the sides, but I've taken a white gel pen and drawn across the spots with a ruler to create a little grid. I then added glitter glue to each dot (time consuming but soooo worth it!) and finihsed it off with a few diamante papermania stars around the scallop edge. I love these gems - so different to the plain ol' round ones too!

Here's the gridwork in slightly more detail.

I'm also going to pop on another quick card, as I was asked to show it ... so here you are Jill - just for you. One of the acetate cards I did at the demo on Saturday.

The background on this one was created using the new fabby Artiste dye based inks - they mix beautifully to create a multicolour background. I used the same colours to stamp the baubles, then used clear embossing powder over the top to give them a little depth.

The stamps for this card are from the Home for Christmas range from Docrafts - it's lovely!! Loving the fonts on the background and the Nordic designs of the baubles. The holly stamp is awesome! One of my favourites me thinks for this past month - such a chunk of a stamp, but it stamps beautifully and fine!

Hope you like the cards for today - I will be back tomorrow with more ... they are finally edited, cropped and brightened, so ready to plonk on my page.

Ok.. now off to see how this posts....! I think I'll wish me good luck..........

About Me

Welcome to my blog!
I hope you find a few things on here that inspire you... there are lots of things to look at - stamping, decoupage, die cutting, crafting and tutorials.... and most importantly - general chatter about most things I get around to doing...
I hope you can join me on my Creative journey.